In the Home of Malfoy
by Rasielle
Summary: As a young boy, Lucius has witnessed the transformation of his arrogant, fiery mother into something his father calls disciplined. There is something in the House of Malfoy that isn't as familial as it should be. Oneshot.


**In the Home of Malfoy**  
_Rasielle _

-

He watches him push her down the stairs.

It shouldn't surprise him, he thinks as he watches her willowy thin frame contort as it tumbles down. After a flight or two, she lands with her cheek to the ground and her fur coat spread across the back of her chest, like a cape for a diva. He cannot see her face, for all of her white-blonde curls cloud protectively around it.

It shouldn't make him this frantic, he knows, but it does. It sends shockwaves up and down his system, and he trembles by the time they reach his toes. He cannot take his eyes off of her, because he loves her but he is too afraid to run to her and push her hair back and see if her eyes are still open. He is too afraid to check if she lives.

He might push him off the stairs next if he does.

-

Talk ceases when she swans into the room, her red heels clacking like some sort of monstrosity as they hit the marble.

They did well to hush, but she knows better; she can tell from the guarded looks on their faces that they were discussing plans, plans considered too dangerous for the tender - even traitorous - ears of the unenthusiastic wives. As she strolls towards the table, one of the men hastens in Vanishing some sort of written document.

As she passes, she purses her lips in displeasure. Her gaze whips about the room to her husband; his grey gaze is also dangerously hostile, and sparks fly. The air practically crackles.

'You told me you would have them out of my house, Cassius,' she hisses, her furs swinging dangerously from her elbow. 'You told me it would only be an hour.'

'Are you positive, my dear?' he asks coldly, eyes glinting. 'I could've sworn I said we would be finished after an hour and a half.'

Her pale face flushes. She is too captured by rage to think of anything to say.

After all, she is positive that he promised it would only be an hour. She would swear it on her life.

'Cassius.' She repeats his name; surely, he cannot ignore her if she does. 'Tonight is for Lucius, and not for _Muggle-chasing_. These meetings, you can have them somewhere and sometime else. And besides, you know what I think of them anyway; you know that I cannot tolerate such nonsense under my roof.'

A deathly silence, but she does not waver. She is young yet, and he knows he hasn't quite disciplined her as well as he should've. Ah well. Her... education was something he had left quite neglected since the very beginning.

That can be corrected.

'Ah, Eglantina, you are quite right,' he declares smoothly, his eyes going deceptively soft. Blinking, the woman looks torn between suspicion and mollification. 'I will call this meeting to an end for now. But dear, do wait for me in the bedroom chamber, will you? I'd like to have a word with you about your intrusions.'

Her lips form the unspoken question: 'a word?' It was never a word so much as it was an entire shouting match, but she looks convinced that this would be something different. Maybe, tonight, he would mature and she'd finally have the family she's always dreamed of.

Gladly, she returns to their bedroom.

-

She slows her rocking as the Welsh lullaby she sings him finishes; it's his favorite, she understands that, and although it's a little painful for her to sing - seven verses and the chorus always repeated in between - his peaceful slumber-breathing never fails to be worth it.

This time, however, he cannot doze by the time it is done. It's too uncomfortable to sleep when she doesn't put her arms under his head to cushion him, and he rolls up in her lap to look her in the face.

Her expression is closed. There's nothing in it that he can both see and comprehend. In his own childish, amateur little words, he would just call her sad.

He hears footsteps come from the hallway, and he hears the knob turn and the door creak as it's set open. His mother's legs go rigid, but she dares not betray her fear by jumping in anxiety.

'Eglantina, you pamper the boy,' Lucius' father chides in a harsh, abrasive voice. He feels her shoulders go tense, too. 'Let him put himself to sleep - he's old enough to. I need to speak with you.'

'He's only six,' she replies reproachfully, refusing to look up from her lap. 'He needs me.'

'I need to speak with you,' his father repeats in a harder tone.

'Say it in front of Lucius, I don't care,' she says ferociously. Now Lucius sits up in his mother's lap, looking from one parent to the other, hoping to finds in their faces the answers to their enmity.

The expression of his father changes to something that the little boy cannot interpret.

'I've heard about your pregnancy,' he says bluntly, making Lucius start. He knows what that means, at least.

The thought of a younger sibling makes the only child glow. He jerks alertly and looks into his mother's face for the barest traces of excitement. There is only fear and hatred and rage and was she mad at the new baby?

_She can't be,_ Lucius reasons out. _She loves babies._

With a heavy sigh, Eglantina carries her son – she winces as the bruises on her arms sting, but she doesn't let him know – over to his cot, and she pulls the blankets over him with all the love in the world. It's as though she's saying goodbye instead of goodnight, the way she looks at him, and she leans down to give him a kiss on the forehead.

When she has left the room and the door has been closed quietly behind a departing Cassius, Lucius is wakeful as he hears something heavy hit the ground.

-

'The mistress is not leaving the bedchamber today; did you hear?' a maid asks to her fellows in restrained whispers. They are hovering outside of her door with their mops in hand, wondering why she has not come out for her meals. 'And the master refuses to acknowledge it.'

'Is it because of the pregnancy?' demands one maid quietly, her small face red with the fury of injustice. 'Is he angry at her because she is with child?'

Two of the maids jump and stare at her in incredulity, as though she had suddenly spouted out in Parseltongue. 'You don't know?' they cry in unison. 'I can't believe it! You don't know!'

'Don't know?' she says impatiently, brandishing her mop. The flying water from one of its ends hits a maid in the face. 'Don't know what?'

'You did not hear it in the night?' they ask her.

'_Hear_ it?'

'Well, last night, something happened between the two of them – and it made a racket. When Mistress Malfoy awoke, there was a spot of blood on her bed and the new baby was – "

The speaking maid stops; as a mass, all of them turn and look toward the door in fear, as though anticipating the lanky, ashen form of Master Cassius to come through and hear them say incriminating things.

Instead, the door remains shut. Distantly, they can hear the faint sound of a sobbing woman.

-

The Wizarding World takes the novelty out of miracles, nowadays; it doesn't take much to revive her after her crash down the stairs. A week passes in a most shocked procession, as though nothing at all has happened and the broken relationship between Master and Mistress had never been.

When a party takes place in the next month, Eglantina Malfoy is healthy and well, as fine and radiant as anything. Though it is the most scorching of summers, she is covered in nothing but garments of fur.

'Eglantina, I've heard the most tragic thing; is it true? Are you well?' She is asked this many times.

And her answer never changes. 'Like a new colt, thank you,' she says sweetly, taking delicate sips from her wine tumbler. 'Just a little tumble down the stairs, that's all; heels are unwise when you live in soresplendent a multi-storied manor,' she adds haughtily, making the girls laugh.

And then she takes another sip from her wine; this time, it is not gracious and small.

Only Lucius carries differences in his behavior; Eglantina, watching him as she sits out on all of the dances, worries. His good humor was contaminated by the most rancid of moods, now; his smiles were growing more like sneers. Undoubtedly, his behavior was becoming more refined – he had never been sophisticated as he jumped around like a happy child. But now he was different; now he was more a Malfoy than ever, covering up his bitterness with a heavy dollop of class.

Eglantina did not like the change.

After supper was set and eaten, she manages to corner him as he strayed towards the beverages. As he pours himself cider – _cider!_ her mind was shrieking in maternal agony – she grabs his arm and swings him around to face her.

'Lucius,' she says urgently, her voice beginning to break. This makes him look up at her more than anything else. Looking over her shoulder once, she makes her voice drop a level in volume. 'Lucius, I know what had happened was scary – but it was because of my shoes, darling. My shoes, only my shoes. Do you ever think about it? Does it worry you? Does it make you hate Mummy and Daddy?'

She cannot read his eyes, and this nearly kills her. He is never so guarded, so skilled in burying his emotions. And she is surprised; she could've sworn he would love her now more than ever, now that he knew which parent was good and which one wasn't, now that he knew which parent loved him and which one didn't care.

The worry in her voice prompts him to speak; there is oil in his voice. He no longer sounds like a child.

He actually sounds like his father.

'It's okay, Mummy,' he mutters. 'It doesn't worry me. Daddy explained everything. He told me why he did it, and why it's important to think like him. He's teaching me everything, Mummy. He's teaching me to be a big boy. You don't have to cry,' he adds, and there is _disgust_ in his voice.

She lets go of his arm in utter horror. 'What is he telling you, Lucius?'

'He told me it's a secret.'

_No, no, no, no, no_… Eglantina wants so badly to shake her son, to make him a boy again, to make him forget about Cassius and make him think about her. 'You have to tell me, Lucius, or I will cry.'

'You're not supposed to cry,' he says, his voice hard. He seems to forget that crying was something he himself had indulged in many times.

His mother sways on the spot. She drops her wine tumbler and it hits the ground with a silver crash.

Wine pools at her feet like blood.

Eglantina and the brainwashed Lucius are unaware that the light music of the room has ceased; no one is dancing. In fact, all is silent as the guests watch the mother and son; they wordlessly witness the drama that ensues and note the answers that unfold in the simple matter of a spilling wine glass.

Not for the first time, they wonder what goes on in the Malfoy Manor behind closed doors, when it is simply father, mother, and son.

- _fin._


End file.
